Brick Roads and Shiny Slippers
by YukitoK
Summary: Glitch and Cain have been blasted from their happily ever after and into another world, where a great evil plans to take over the O.Z.Slash GC
1. Chapter 1

Waking up was rather like – digging himself out of his own grave. He had never hurt as much as this, not in his lengthening life. He didn't even remember who he was for an eternity as he just lay and was conscious only of pain. He cracked one ice blue eye to look at a dirty ceiling, but he didn't know it was that at the moment. It just hurt.

Then the hurt began to ebb and concentrate itself in his right shoulder. Shoulder, shoulder…he'd been shot hadn't he? Again? Or was this the first time? Was he still in the cart with…

"Cain…" Came the frantic whisper of Glitch and Wyatt Cain closed the eye again as even the soft touch of the other man's voice beat at the pulse at his temple.

"Cain…don't go back to sleep this time…please?" There was a tint of desperation to the voice that made him open both eyes as best he could to try to look around. Slowly, ever so very slowly he let his head fall to the side and there was Glitch… He looked the same as ever, except he was handcuffed to the bars of the next cell, his back to Cain.

"Where the hell are we and what's with the accessories?" He grumbled, and then moaned. The sound of his own voice hurt in his head.

Glitch turned to see him better, his arms bending at a funny angle as he moved as best he could around the bars. "I don't know where we are…a prison of some sort. I woke up a little before you did, and I'm not sure why they did this." He shook his hands so the metal cuffs rattled against the bars.

Cain groaned at the noise. "Are you hurt?" He asked the question he always had to. Not that he could have done anything to fix it had the other man BEEN hurt.

"No, but I can see you are."

"It's not so much the gun shot that gets ya, it's the…what happened to us anyway?"

Glitch shook his curly head. "I'm not sure…we were at our happily ever after…and then…there was light and here we are." His painted lips formed a thin line. He was worried, not least of all for Cain, but also for himself. Why couldn't things just be simple and happy?

His thoughts were interrupted by the Tin Man's grunting as he attempted to sit up. He finally made it, only to collapse against Glitch, back to back with a sigh.

"Um…Cain?" He ventured.

The blond tipped his head a bit to let him know he was listening.

"How are we going to get out of here? Do you think DG's okay?"

The former cop used his good left hand to push at the headache behind his eyes. "I don't know." He thought about it for a second then amended, "Yet. I don't know yet."

He reached over with his good left hand and took Glitch's shackled one for a moment. "We'll be all right, just don't panic."

"Panicking?" Glitch said with a scoffing laugh, though his voice was shaking. "Who's panicking?"

"You are, you're too quiet," Cain said with his usual frown.

"Okay, so I'm panicking. What do you care? It isn't as if we can exactly…" He looked down at his hand, Cain was… "Excuse me, what are you doing?"

"Shut up," Cain growled lowly as Glitch's voice made his head throb.

"You're the one who said I was too quiet, what are you doing?" The advisor was very agitated now and he wiggled, trying to pull out of the other's grip and Cain gasped in pain as his shot arm was jostled. He gritted his teeth and smacked Glitch's arm.

"I'm trying to get you out of these cuffs, now knock it off!"

"You know…" Glitch said, totally oblivious now to his situation. "I used to spend hours…conferring with flowers…and now I'm stuck in here, with you." He scoffed a bit. "Not exactly how I imagined –" And that's where the thought ended. A couple more moments of silence then the cuffs fell off with a clank.

"Got it," Cain said unnecessarily. "Sorry it took so long, it's harder to pick locks one handed."

He leaned back against the bars and finally had a chance to look around. It was dark except for a slice of blue sky that could be seen out a tiny window. They were in a row of cells; all looked to be empty and…the door to his cell was open. That was odd. It smelled of decay and earth and ancient things and the air seemed strangely still.

"If I only had my brain," Glitch lamented to himself. "You know, there were gardens in the palace that –"

"Glitch…see if your door is open," he ordered quietly interrupting the irritating banter.

"Oh FINE!" He said with a pout. "Just ignore me completely. It's not like I have feelings or anyth-"

"GLITCH!"

The other rolled his eyes and stood. "How stupid do you think I am that I wouldn't have noticed if my door was…oh," he said in dismay as the door swung open on it's creaky hinges. He opened Cain's door easily as well and sat next to the Tin Man.

Cain's mouth was open as he took in one pained breath after another, his brow knit in concentration. "It's getting dark, we should get out of here while we can see. Help me up."

"But Cain, your arm…"

"I know, help me up."

"You should rest."

"Glitch, I swear to the STARS if you don't help me up –" he ground out, his temper shortening.

"Okay, okay, you don't need to shout, I'm going!" He bit his lower lip as he helped Cain stand.

The former cop winced, every joint folding out as if he needed oil for them. "Okay…now…we're going to try walking."

"Where?"

"To the window first. Let's see where we are."

Glitch helped him to the small window and what he saw made his frown deepen. "Uh oh," he said quietly.

"What is it?" Glitch leaned over, shoulder to shoulder with Cain and gasped at what he saw. "Oh…Cain…I don't think we're in the O.Z. anymore…"


	2. Chapter 2

I don't think I made this clear at the beginning of the last chapter. This is occurring directly after the Mini-series ended. . 3 Yuki

Glitch looked at Cain hoping he had some sort of explanation for this because it was scaring him witless – well, MORE witless. "What happened?" He breathed into Cain's ear. The whole of the world stretched out beneath them and it was in ruin. There was no blooming tree, or blade of grass, just…the chaos of war and destruction.

"I don't know," He admitted, squinting into the blinding light of the twin suns. "But whatever it was, it wasn't good. And there's not enough left to give me an idea where we are. If this is the O.Z."

Glitch clutched Cain's arm, but otherwise showed no sign of the distress he was feeling inside. "Oh…I don't like this at all…not one bit."

The Tin Man glanced at him, "Relax Glitch. We'll figure it out. Or am I supposed to call you Ambrose now?"

"What?"

"You told me to call you Ambrose, that IS your name right?" Of course it was, they'd been hearing it all along their journey.

"I don't know, do you WANT to call me that? It really makes little difference to me at this point," He turned to look at the other and both were rather startled to discover how close they were. Glitch could feel the warm breath that came from Cain's full lips and brushed at his skin. He licked his lips, and then looked away.

A flash of ginger fur caught his peripheral vision and he turned to try to catch what it was and in the process forgot he was holding Cain up.

The other fell with a crash, but wasn't hurt at all; he fell on his left side. "Glitch…do you mind? What is it?" He asked, pushing himself up on the arm and struggling to his feet again.

"I thought I saw…a fox…or a dog. I'm not sure which."

"I suppose there are lots of mice to eat."

A fox like face peaked it's head around the door at the end of the corridor, but the rest of the body trotted it way out. It was a dog, with short legs and a stubby tail. The face was set in a huge smile and it was panting, large ears perked up, listening to the two newcomers.

"That's a dog," Cain said, and only got it out before Glitch was crouched calling to the stupid thing.

"Come here pretty doggie!" He cooed. The dog barked then lay its ears back and charged at Glitch full speed, tail wagging happily. The advisor laughed as he was thrown back by the weight of the tiny dog and was licked all over his face by a hot wet tongue.

Cain rolled his eyes and picked up the dog with one arm. She yelped as she was picked up but then fixed her brown eyes on the blue of Cain and began to lick and bite his ear. "OW! Knock it off!"

"I'm going to call her Aggie!" Glitch exclaimed and took the dog from him.

"You're NOT keeping her."

"You are not my father, or brother…or…wait…are you?"

Cain squinted at him, brow drawn down but ignored the question. Stupid, half-brained scarecrow of a man, father indeed. He was hardly much older than Glitch himself. "Let's go." He pushed off the wall and began down the cellblock.

The dog leapt out of Glitch's arms and took off past him in a streak of ginger fur. "WAIT!" And away went Glitch, who had completely forgotten about Cain in place of the small animal.

"GLITCH!" The Tin Man yelled after him. But the other was too far to hear him. He cursed that he wasn't strong enough to run, because he was sure Glitch would forget about him until he wandered up here again…or didn't. He sat against the wall to wait and found himself drifting off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Three clicks and the nightmare was over.

Three clicks.

Pain.

Glitch was crying…why? That didn't make any sense. There wasn't anything wrong. He looked down and his shirt was stained with a blossoming bloodstain.

Oh…he was dying, that was odd. The world tilted at an strange angle as he fell.

'There's no place like home.'

He awoke with a start to complete darkness. He sighed and relaxed back into the hard stone wall as he remembered where he was. His head didn't hurt anymore, but his shoulder still did. There was a light coming from the end of the cell-block. He stood and used the wall for support to get to the end and peek around the corner, gun drawn in his non-shooting hand, just in case.

It was a little girl. She was barefoot, naked, and couldn't be 5 years old. Her hair was strait and an odd shade of reddish orange. She didn't see him right away; she was holding her lantern high, as if trying to read something on the wall.

"Hey…" he whispered so as not to scare her. "Are you lost?" She turned the light toward him, her brown eyes wide.

"No, I'm not lost. I found you," she replied with a perplexing matter-of-factness.

He tipped his head at her. "What do you mean by that?"

She took a step toward him, light held far out from her dirty pale skin. "I can't tell you. It's a secret…" she whispered.

"I see…" he whispered back, getting down on one knee as she came closer. "Say have you seen my friend? He's a little shorter than me, really crazy hair?"

"OOOOH!" Her face lit up for a moment, and then fell. "Nope, sorry." She reached out and took his hand. "Come on, we have to go."

He struggled out of his jacket and wrapped her in it. "How about this…I'll carry you."

She wiggled in glee, little feet kicking happily. "Okay!"

"Do you know where we are?" He asked her as she led the way with her lantern.

"Oh sure Mister Cain, this is Oz."

He stopped on the stairs and looked at her brown eyes with his deep blue ones. Suddenly he was greatly confused. "How…how do you know who I am?"

She grinned and changed in his arms into…that tiny, annoying dog. The lamp she'd been carrying fell to the floor with a crash. She leapt from his arms and took off down the stairs with a bark.

He picked it up, along with his coat and followed. "Glitch?" He peaked around a corner. "Who decorated this place?" He asked out loud to himself. It was grim, dark and his light was the only light that shone in the huge cavernous room. "Wait…I know this place…" he said with terrified awe. "How did we get here?"


	4. Chapter 4

Glitch was confused. He'd been with Cain hadn't he? Where was Cain? Didn't the Tin Man know better than to leave him alone? He could get lost…well…he already was. Darn him anyway. "CAIN?" He called in a panic, and then suddenly remembered the little ginger dog. "AGGIE?"

The room was hugeish. The sort of room you held grand audience in, at least, that's what Glitch would do with it, if he wasn't lost and…

The thought stopped there as he heard his name echo far away down the hall. He ran and ran and ran until he forgot WHY exactly he was running. "CAIN!" He called loudly and was met with a bark. A bark?! Since when did Cain bark like a small yappy – oh! "Look a dog." He said aloud to himself.

"Glitch!" Came his name again and he looked up to see the blond man limping toward him. He didn't remember who he was right away but he obviously needed help. Cain, for his part was just glad he'd found the other man.

"Oh!" Glitch cried, running toward him, nearly tripping over the panting, happy dog at his feet as he ran to help. He held Cain up with the larger man's arm around his shoulders and a hand on his broad chest. "I've got you. Oh! You're bleeding!"

"I'm fine," Cain said, though he was beginning to feel a bit dizzy with blood loss.

"Is that the truth, or are you just saying that to shut me up?"

"To shut you up," he answered honestly.

"Oh," Glitch said, that was fair. "Where are we?"

"The old Emerald City…the audience hall where the Wizard of Oz used to hold his court."

"Oz?"

"The O.Z. That's what they used to call it."

"Oh…what happened to the Emerald City? I've never heard of it."

"They build Central City on top of it. The Mystic Man used to talk about this place." Cain looked at the scorched cathedral ceiling and frowned.

"What happened to it? It looks…burned."

Aggie barked and ran off toward the head of the room. Glitch looked at Cain curiously, "Should we follow?"

Cain shrugged. "Don't see why not."

They limped along behind the hyper red and white dog and followed her out a small hole in the wall and into the scorched earth beyond. Cain turned to look up at the tower they'd left. It was round and it's one beautiful skin burned black from whatever intense flame had consumed this place.

Glitch gasped, terrified by all this. "Who would do this?" He asked, awestruck. Aggie took that moment to torn back into the little naked girl Cain had met.

"The E. Pluribus Unum did it…" she said sadly. "We used to have a lovely forest here, until they came looking. Poking their noses in."

"Ooo look Cain, she's a shape shifter, just like Tutor!" Glitch was delighted with this turn of events. Cain ignored the outburst.

"E. Pluribus Unum…" Cain repeated her. "Who's that?"

"The soldiers from the Other Side that came looking for weapons. I brought you here, as the O.Z.'s greatest warriors to save us because we need to stop them before our whole world disappears."

"What…here? Are we in the future?" Cain asked slowly, not really wanting the answer because he had a good guess.

"Oh yes…sorry, I forgot to tell you. I had to bring you 500 years into your future. That's where we are."

"500 –," Glitch said distantly, and then, before Cain could move to help, he fainted dead away.


End file.
